Don Pedro's Cruise Liner Employment Scam

As the Nigerian group is defrauding seamen and other mariners by sending fake job offers, so this Malaysian group is faking employment offers on cruise liners.

On this page you find an example of a fake cruise liner job offer as well as a fake job offer that seems to have some connection to cruise liners. I also give some ideas on how to check if the offer you have received is real or not. Some targets / victims have sent me copies of other fake job offers on cruise ships that they have received. I do report on those also.

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In July 2006 an Indian AB received a job offer from Oasis Cruises in Malaysia (Port Dickson), 2.800 USD per month, on one of their cruise liners. A few days later he received an other message from a Malaysian (Kuala Lumpur) attorney office, stating salary 2.500 USD per month and asking for 600 USD processing fee for Malaysian work permit. This was bank transfer to a Malaysian bank.

The lawyers request was signed by Mohammed Abus, Senior Partner of "Anaclet Chambers" in Kuala Lumpur, tel. ++ 617 355 1797. "Anaclet Chambers" is not registered with the Malaysian Bar Association and therefore not authorized to act as an advocate or solicitor. You are advised to take extra caution in dealing with this firm or any person (Mr Mohammed Abus) from that firm. You can check any other lawyer's office by contacting Malaysian Bar Association. Mr Abus is also mentioned on the page Cruise Ship employment scam from before.
The picture to the right is a copy of the job offer.

The "Oasis Cruises" gave tel. no. ++ 601 229 64213 and 601 630 35304 (in Malaysia), address: 456 Jalan Gombak, Port Dickson. The message was signed by Datuk Seri Muhammed Rahimi, Senior Manager, Human Resources & Administration.

The "company" have a website: www.oasiscruises.com. Due to coding errors only dark blue background can be seen in Explorer, while Firefox shows the pages OK. The server is owned by Telekom Malaysia Berhad and the email is on: oasiscruises.com

On the website it's stated the company is doing around the world cruises, like for instance Australia to Southampton (UK). It's also said at least one of their cruise ships carries 245 passengers. There is a page with six photos of "cruise liners". Two of the ship's photos are duplicated, and one of these is both from abeam and from the starboard bow. So out of six pictures, there's a total of three ships only.

The website lists the names of five ships: Wuma Viva, Oasis Princess, Viva, Conda, and Wuma. Only the name "Viva" can be found in ITU ( International Telecommunications Union ). Several ships with this name are listed but only two with EPIRB - both registered in Germany. When you zoom in on the ship pictures the flag looks very much Malaysian, it's definitely not German.

EPIRB ( Electronic Position Indicating Radar Beacon ) is mandatory on every ocean-going / foreign going ship. A ship without this is used in domestic / coastal trade only.

The one example above is not the only target - this offer is continuously sent to seafarers (cruise ship crew) who have their email address available on the internet.

This cruise ship employment scam was still going strong in 2007. Mr Mohammed Abus at Anaclet Chambers in Kuala Lumpur still busy collecting money (?). Last fake job offer I know about was received in October 2007. I hope not too many people are sending him anything.

If you get anything like the offer and request for advance fee like above, you can check if the lawyer is a member of the Malaysian Bar Association or not. Go to List of Malaysian Lawyers 2005, the list was compiled by US Embassy ( Consular Section ) in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia). Even if the lawyer isn't listed, he/she could have been admitted to the bar later, but that in itself is a reason for extreme caution. You need Adobe Reader 8.0 ( 128 MB ) to open the document.

In March 2008 I received a "funny" job offer - funny in the way it didn't offer any specific job positions at all. It wasn't even directly concerned with maritime employment except for a banner with a cruise liner at top. The banner serves as a link to www.cruiseinc.com, which I believe is a US cruise ticketing company. I quote the message:

QUOTE: FROM THE DIRECTOR GENERAL,
GLOBAL SHIPPING COMPANY CANADA.

DEAR SIR/MADAM.

WE ARE USING THIS OPPORTUNITY TO ADVERTISE OUR JOB OFFER,
THE OFFER HAS BEEN CIRCULATED AROUND THE GLOBE, AND IT IS FOR THOSE

WHO ARE LOOKING FOR A JOB, SO, THE MESSAGE HAS COME TO YOU TODAY, NOW, IF YOU KNOW THAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A JOB,

AND YOU WILL LIKE TO WORK WITH OUR COMPANY HERE IN CANADA,
YOU WILL APPLY IMMEDIATELY SO THAT, WE WILL SEND YOU OUR APPLICATION FORM,

PLEASE, DON'T FORGET TO APPLY WITH YOUR CV AND YOUR TELEPHONE NUMBERS FOR EMERGENCY CONTACT,

Free medical care in Canada for employee and family.
Excellent educational assistance benefits with family status employment.
. Paid airfares allowing full flexibility with holiday travel.
. Personal effects shipment and excess baggage allowances.
. Full access to some of the finest and social recreational facilities in Canada,

WE WILL TAKE CARE OF YOUR VISA AND YOUR TICKET.

FROM GLOBAL SHIPPING COMPANY,
CANADA.

THANKS.

390, Bay Street,
Suite 1600 Munich Center,
Toronto Ontario M5h 2Y2 Canada.UNQUOTE

There are no names mentioned in the job offer itself, but this ends with an "advertisement" for an immigration services company with the same address as this "global shipping company" and an animated ( moving ) Canadian flag.

There are several reasons why I classify this as a scam: There's no direct connection between the top banner and the "company" making the offer - a company that cannot be found anywhere, the e-mail address is "jobs.global1@yahoo.ca", and then there's one sentence common to many fake offers. That sentence is: "Full access to some of the finest and social recreational facilities in Canada". Not even all Canadians have that access!

At the very end there are several photos of people with very nice titles. The e-mail gives an impression these are the people that will take care of you. Their names are:
Hon.Patmalar Ambikapathy, Ba.Kim Baker Sq, Hon.QC. M.Bartfeld, Hon.Paul Bingham, Ba.David T. Crocker, Ba.Sarah L. Fregon, Ba.Sharon Kermath, Ba.Alan Llewellyn Hands, Dr.Frank Jones, Dr.Ba Adams F

Everyone of these are represented by a photo, I have reproduced only a small part of the last one (i.e. face only), that is Dr.Ba Adams F - the picture is to the right. Would you trust your future with this person ?

When a shipowner or recruiting agent contacts you to offer a highly paid job you haven't applied for, be very cautious. Every personnel office is too busy to surf the Internet searching for seamen CVs and then trying to contact people with job offers. Except when you have some very special skill or knowledge (like a top consultant).

One of the first days of May 2008 I received from an Indian marine engineer a new scam message going around. The offer was from K-Shipping & Cruises Company in Ghana (!) with a website: k-shippingcruise.biz.ly - ".ly" is a Libyan extension. They say they "own a fleet of passenger ships, vessels, and cargo ships". They use an expression I have seen before in these scam letters.

The fake offer was signed by Adowa Antwi, which is a Ghanaian name. It's Ashanti, which is one of the tribes and languages in Ghana. "Adowa" means this is a female born on a Monday, but one can never be sure of who really sent an e-mail message. The name can very well be fake as well, although there are many Nigerians with Ghanaian citizenship. They were born in Ghana.

On their webpage ( Employment 2008 ) there are several pictures of different ships, including a couple of dredgers. The text accompanying the pictures, however, only talks about passenger ships ( cruise liners ). The Indian Engineer was offered a job onboard MS Alaska Arrow, which doesn't exist according to ITU (see below).

The text accompanying the pictures lists only passenger ships ( medium to small size ) by names: Caedmon, Cenred, Cenwulf, Fastcat-Ryde, Fastcat-Shantlin, Florence, Metalina, Alaska Arrow, Dodi, and Silas. The three first ones can be found in ITU register - one of each name - under UK Flag but no EPIRB. MS Florence (36 vessels) - one under German Flag with EPIRB. MS Dodi and MS Silas (12 and 10 vessels respectively - only one ( MS Dodi ) under Irish Flag with EPIRB. The rest of the ships doesn't exist. Very unlikely anyone of these would be owned and used by an unknown Ghanaian company.

There is also on the "employment" page a list of salaries. The salaries are the same regardless of ship's size and some funny job positions are included in the list.. In the offer-letter they ask for an advance fee, don't pay - even if you think it's small money only.

Every seafarer with his/her e-mail address available on the Net is a possible target. See Don Pedro's How to Hide my Email Address.

There is one or several other groups (Nigerian) running employment scams targeting seafarers in general. If an offer sounds too good, then it's probably fake.

In December 2006 I was told about a British "recruiter" going around in Sri Lanka offering employment on cruise liners. He collected 2.000 USD each from 200 people. Since then both he and the money has disappeared.

A searchable and indexed archive of scams received by email. You can check every email you are suspicious about against the archive. You can also include the scam search in the Google toolbar - if you have the toolbar.

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